Experiments with Structure and Material

Abstract

While dominant, commercial cinema was about the compression of the time/space continuum and the illusion of the passage of time through narrative, the intention of structural and material film was to raise awareness of duration, film material and process, to encourage viewer-reflexivity and demystify the filmmaking process. A focus on the relationships between film content and film form identified that structural filmmaking was ‘often theorised as a cinematic relation — and disjunction — between signifiers and signified.’¹ A.L. Rees additionally noted that’ [d]uration became the hallmark of British structural film, a “road not taken” by the mainstream cinema or by the lyric direction in avant-garde film’.² This type of film experimentation explored film medium and structure, revealed processes and procedures in filmmaking and took an anti-Hollywood stance to counter symbolic image use and narrative structure. While initially there were considerable US influences fuelling debate and filmmaking — notably in the form of New American Cinema screenings (1964/68) and close contacts with the New York Co-operative — British experimentation was boosted by a number of active and influential individuals, including filmmakers/theorists Malcolm Le Grice and Peter Gidal and activist/film programmer, and later Arts Council officer, David Curtis.